Defying Pack Law (6 page)

Along with the brightening night
stars, the moon arrived. The wispy cloud cover of earlier parted to
reveal the white globe in its full majestic glory. Its appearance
meant the pack would be gathering for its midnight run shortly. No
full Lycan could resist the call of a full moon. Heck, younglings
past the first spurt of puberty tended to spontaneously
shift.

Not a thing she worried with around
Nathan. As a full Lycan, he’d long ago mastered the moon madness
that affected their kind, a madness she’d never experienced as a
dormant.

The moon’s rays bathed her nude
body, turning her skin the color of alabaster. Dana squirmed as her
exposed and illuminated skin first tickled, then itched. She jumped
up from her cuddly spot on Nathan, suddenly uncaring of her nudity
as the itch turned into pain.

“
What’s wrong?” Nathan asked,
concern etching his voice. He stood and reached his hands out to
her.

Pain ripped through her, sending her
muscles into involuntary spasms. “Nathan, help me,” she gasped
before falling to her knees, still convulsing.

His strong hands came to stroke her
as she twisted on the ground, the searing pain spreading outward
into all of her limbs.

“
Oh my God, Dana. You’re changing.
You’re finally changing.” He sounded so excited, but caught in a
screaming agony that seemed never-ending, she could only wail, and
then howl, as her body morphed with sickening cracks into that of a
wolf.

Dana panted as she lay on the
ground, her body changed. Disoriented, but thankful the pain had
receded, she struggled to her feet, wobbly like a newborn colt. She
shook her head to clear a vision that, while sharper, no longer
perceived things in a manner she was used to. Nathan’s hands
continued to stroke her fur.

“
Dana, you’re a wolf.” He sounded
so awed.

She, however, wasn’t as impressed.
It had bloody hurt.

“
It must have been the moon,” he
said in wonder.

Dana snorted, or tried to. What came
out was more like a cross between a bark and a wheeze. Wolf mouths
weren’t meant to speak human words. But her mind still worked, and
it churned furiously, trying to understand what had just
happened.

She’d been exposed to the moon many
a time before, mostly by her father, in an attempt to trigger the
change. He’d tried in her tweens, when her menses first started.
He’d tried in her teens, when she grew into her more womanly
shape.

He’d even tried after feeding her
one nasty concoction after another, all attempts to trigger her
dormant Lycan gene. None of it had worked, so why now?

Dana’s eyes caught the pile of
clothes on the ground, and the gears in her mind stopped whirring.
The only difference this time was the loss of her maidenhead to
Nathan.

Dana wondered for a horrified moment
if she’d be forced to confess her transgression with Nathan to her
father. She hoped the fact that she could now shift would distract
her father from asking the embarrassing question of how. And even
better, prevent the beating he was sure to inflict for having given
in to her baser desires.

But that worry could wait for later.
She was a wolf!

She moved a few steps forward, the
adjustment to four limbs strange but not hard to pick up. She heard
Nathan gasp, and she turned too quickly, almost landing on her
nose. Nathan was gone. In his place stood a dark-haired wolf that
seemed to grin at her with its lolling tongue.

She gave him back a canine grin of
her own. Suddenly, she didn’t feel too bad anymore. The pain was
gone. Her dad would probably be ecstatic, and best news of all, she
was destined to become Nathan’s wife. With a joyful yip, she
walked, then ran across the clearing into the woods, the
exhilaration of her new body filling her.

She raced side by side with Nathan,
encountering other wolves also out loping under the moon. Their
howls filled the night sky, and Dana, caught up in the moment,
enjoyed every second of it.

* * * *

She awoke late the next day, her
father having let her sleep in and miss her chores given the
incredible events of the night before. And she wasn’t just talking
about the fact she could now shift like the others. Nathan had
asked her to marry him! She would be his wife. As if thinking of
him conjured him, she heard a tapping at her window.

She flung back her covers and went
to the window in only a T-shirt and underwear. Modesty seemed
stupid given their lovemaking. Not to mention her sudden change
back into human shape, in all its naked glory, to an audience of
several. Her blushes had at least kept her hot until someone gave
her a shirt to drape herself in. Even more warming were Nathan’s
glares at those who openly leered. Who said jealousy wasn’t
attractive?

She unlocked her window and slid it
open so her fiancé—she giggled in her head at that title—could come
in.

He grinned widely at her as he
enveloped her in a hug that made her squeak. She squealed as he
twirled her around. Then she got a look at his face.

“
What happened to you?” she
gasped.

Both of his eyes were swollen and
purple, and his lips puffed up. She pushed back and tugged at his
shirt. He didn’t fight her as she lifted it and saw the bruises
that peppered his skin. “Oh, Nathan,” she wailed, her eyes filling
with tears.

“
I had a disagreement with my dad.
Don’t worry. It’s already mostly healed.”

She sucked in a breath, horrified
that this was what he considered better. How badly had his dad hurt
him and why? “But—”

He didn’t let her finish her
question, kissing her breathless instead. “Forget about me. How do
you feel?” he asked.

How like him to be more concerned
about her. She moved back into the circle of his arms and leaned
her head on his chest. “It feels like last night was a really weird
but wonderful dream.” One she’d treasure forever.

“
It was real. Are you excited
you’ve found your wolf?”

“
I’m most excited by the fact I’m
going to be your wife,” she answered honestly, peering up at him as
she twined her fingers through the hair that curled at his
nape.

A shadow crossed his face. “Me too.
You’ll be glad to know we’ve actually got permission from both of
our parents to go ahead. And don’t worry, my dad and yours promised
we’d have plenty of time between now and the first baby for us to
enjoy each other.”

Her brow creased with confusion. “Of
course we will. Besides, silly, having a baby doesn’t mean the fun
stops. After all, we’ll need to have lots of fun to make that big
family we talked about.” The mention of babies elated her. Now that
she’d come into her heritage, she could have pups of her own
instead of envying those around her.

His jaw tightened. “Of course we’ll
still have fun together. It’ll just be an adjustment sharing you.
I’d kind of gotten used to the idea of having you all to
myself.”

Dana froze and searched his face for
a hint she’d misunderstood. “Excuse me? What do you mean share me?
You told me last night it would be just you and me. You know that’s
what I want.”

“
But that was before your wolf
found you. I know this is hard. I had it out with my dad over it,
but as he reminded me, the well-being of the pack comes before that
of the individual. And you know as well as I do that because full
Lycan females are rare, they are to be shared. At least your father
and mine agreed to wait to add others until after we’ve conceived
our first pup.”

“
How decent of you all to make that
decision for me,” she replied sarcastically.

“
Dana, it’s for the
best.”

“
He beat you into agreeing to this,
didn’t he?” His bruises now made so much sense.

Nathan shrugged. “I’ll admit, I
wasn’t too keen on the idea at first. But, Dad has a point, and
your dad also made it a condition of his agreeing to our marriage.
I’ll take sharing you against your dad giving you to someone else
any day.”

Dana pushed out of his arms, aghast
at his nonchalant attitude. She clung tight to her anger to hide
the breaking of her heart. “But you said it would be just you and
me. You promised.” She hated how pitiful she sounded. She hated
even more that he didn’t seem to care.

“
It’ll still be us, most of the
time. And, your dad says if I don’t fight it, I’ll get a vote when
it comes to choosing the others. I’ll make sure it’s guys you’ll
like, like my best friend, John. You’ll see. It won’t be so
bad.”

Dana snapped, “Yes, it will be. It’s
not you that’s got to whore himself out. I won’t do it, and if you
loved me, you wouldn’t make me.”

“
I don’t have a choice,” he shouted
back.

“
Yes, you do. We could run away.
Just you and me. Build a life together, away from the pack and its
stupid laws.” She gave him a chance. A chance to redeem himself. To
prove his love to her.

“
I can’t do that. Where would we
go? How would we live? And besides, you know I’m in line for the
alpha position when my dad gets too old.”

“
So you’re choosing the pack over
me?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“
No, I’m choosing both of
you.”

Dana shook her head. “No, you
aren’t. If you truly loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to do this. Not
knowing how much I hate the thought. Get out.”

“
Aw, come on, don’t be like this,
baby. You know I love you. I don’t have a choice. It’s pack
law.”

“
Fuck you, and fuck the pack laws.
Get out! Get out! Get out!” She punctuated her screams with the
throwing of objects that she picked up randomly off her
dresser.

Nathan stared at her in shock,
letting the missiles bounce off him. “But, I love you. Please,
Dana, don’t be like this.”

“
No, you don’t love me,” she
wailed. “Get out. Please, just go.” She collapsed to the floor,
sobbing, unable to face his calm betrayal of what she’d thought was
something pure. Something for them alone. Something
special.

She heard a rustle, and she half
expected to feel his hands on her, comforting her. Instead, she
heard him say, “You’ll get over it in time. You’ll see once we’re
married and the babes start coming. It won’t be so bad.”

But she knew better. She’d watched
it with her own mother. The smiles when it was just them and her
dad. The stony face when the others came to claim their turn. The
tears. The numerous miscarriages. And finally her death in
childbirth.

Dana knew she was biased given her
mother’s hysterics over being shared. She knew not all the women
felt that way. Some even lived in perfect harmony with their
numerous males, popping out babies. But all the happy ones in the
world couldn’t excuse those who had to be led in tears and drawn
faces to do their duty for the pack.

Not me. I won’t be shared.
Her decision, while fine and dandy, though,
didn’t mean she’d get a say. She could beg, plead, and cry all she
wanted. She already knew her father wouldn’t listen. They’d give
her no choice.

So she ran. With only the clothes on
her back and the money she’d saved babysitting, she escaped the
only life and family she’d known and exchanged it for a hard
life.

* * * *

A lonely life. And one that twelve years later
still made her question if it was the right choice. As her mind
went through its third cycle of the night that everything had
changed, she felt herself pulled from the dream. As she floated
back to consciousness, she realized someone shook her gently while
a persistent voice insisted she wake up. She slapped at the hand
that tapped her cheek, her mind sluggish, and her eyelids held
closed by a ton of bricks.

“
Stop,” she protested in a weak
voice, forcing the words past a tongue that was thick and dry. She
fuzzily wondered how she hadn’t died. She remembered pain, lots of
it. She also recalled her deep despair and the wish to end it all.
She definitely didn’t recall lying on a soft mattress like the one
she found herself on now or the enticing smell of wolf that, for
once, didn’t make her want to bolt. Fear kept her eyes closed. What
if she had died and was now in some sort of werewolf
heaven?

“
And here I thought you’d be eager
to wake up and yell at me a little bit.”

The familiar voice did what gentle
cajoling couldn’t.
Nathan?
A vague recollection of him in her cell, morphing
from beast to man, floated to the surface of her mind. Could it be?
Her eyes popped open. She didn’t see Nathan, but the face bending
over her seemed vaguely familiar. Handsome, with brown eyes that
twinkled, the stranger smiled at her, and though she scented his
Lycan nature, his calm demeanor didn’t raise her hackles. Actually,
her inner wolf stirred with interest. How unusual.

“
Morning, Sleeping Beauty. Nice to
see you’re back with us.” He offered her a bottle of water, and she
grabbed it from him eagerly, slopping it wetly on herself as she
drank, but she didn’t care.